UN Official Hails Morocco's Resolve to Maintain Conference on Climatic Changes

Morocco's resolve to maintain the Marrakesh conference on climatic changes despite the present international juncture was hailed by executive secretary of the Kyoto pact, Michael Zammit Cutajar.

Cutajar told a press conference New York this is a strong and encouraging signal that multilateral cooperation on vital issues for the future of humankind should be carried on. This is all the more welcome for it is the first time that such a top level conference is held in an African country, he said stressing that the continent needs coordinated action to face adverse effects of climatic changes, including desertification.

World representatives who would be meeting in Marrakesh from October 29 through November 4 will approve the rules package to pave the way for governments to ratify the 1997 Kyoto treaty and bring it into force, ultimately leading to reductions in the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming. The Marrakesh conference will look into crucial political issues and try to talk the US into reducing its gas emissions.

Last July, the Bonn conference agreed on some principles and drafted 10 decision projects that will be endorsed in Marrakesh where institutions provided for in the Kyoto pact will also be born.

The pact needs 55 countries signatory countries, including industrialized countries which produced in 1990 at least 55% of the carbon dioxide emissions. A single industrialized country, Rumania, has so far ratified the agreement.